Google has promised earlier this month that it would help weed out copyright vioations committed on YouTube and its other services. The company has pledged to respond to complaints on copyright violations within 24 hours. Google also said that it will introduce tools to monitor copyright violators. According to them, the tools include countermeasures to allow people to challenge copyright complaints. In addition to this, Google plans to police the websites in its online advertising network more closely. All the means mentioned by Google boil down to increasing vigilance on the assumption that increased vigilance will result in the reduction of cases of copyright violations.
The previous practice of Google to counter piracy was merely by deleting or removing the pirated material on the websites. This practice has been sanctioned as sufficient by a US federal court in a case instituted by Viacom Inc. against Google and YouTube.
I think Google should commit to do more than this. I think the company has a very crucial role in proliferating online piracy. Hence, it must bear a huge responsibility upon its shoulders to curb it. While I recognize the need to loosen the boundaries for sharing intellectual and creative oututs in tune with globalization, I also see the greater need to protect these outputs as they are quickly becoming the most valued commodity of our time.
I believe that Google needs to adopt a more proactive method of stopping copyright violations such as putting up a mechanism that has the capability of detecting copyrights even before the materials are uploaded on the websites. Google may also be stricter in securing the integrity of the identity of its users and uploaders to enable the company to track down copyright violators.
Happy Holidays! :-D
Source: Associated Press, December 2, 2010
Entry No. 6
No comments:
Post a Comment